Tas Gov’t Web Publishing Guidelines
There are a set of documents I’d like Tasmanian Government employees (and citizens) to become more familiar with because people shouldn’t be in the web industry and still asking “are there laws pertaining to web development?” – I’d suggest they look into the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Anti Discrimination Act 1998. Or take a good long look at the Tasmanian government policies on web publishing which mention these two relevant Acts right at the top of the accessibility policy guidelines. That document sits under resources and then Tasmanian Government web publishing standards (click the link named accessibility).
There shouldn’t be situations where alternate text on images, for example, are just the name of the government department the image is displayed on – the same official policy dictating accessibility requirements states that all government websites must meet at a minimum WCAG 1.0 Priority 1. This means all government sites must ensure all non-text content has a text equivalent, for example MEANINGFUL alternate text for all images – simply because that is required by Priority 1. And yet when one mentions such outlandish ideas then someone puts you in a box that you are just some idiot who spends too much time PLAYING with the web. Now that’s frustrating.
Move to a sister policy document under guidelines and you’ll see one titled Usability Guidelines. So please for the sake of humouring me could anyone tell me why when I mentioned User Centred Design Principles some months ago to a government manager it had never been heard of – nor WCAG 1.0 nor the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 nor the Anti Discrimination Act 1998! Ignoring to implement something is one thing but when it becomes about ignorance of their existence its a concern.
What can be really frustrating in this business is when someone makes an assumption based on the fact they didn’t understand the problem space in the first place – yes to someone who has never heard of these ideas they might sound outlandish. But that doesn’t make me the ignorant one.
That specific conversation happened a few months ago and to be honest ever since I’ve been made to feel a bit like I’m the one who doesn’t know what I’m talking about. And its not the first time I’ve had this situation with anyone either.
Read the documents. Be aware. The web is not just an incidental publishing platform like Microsoft Word. It also isn’t just an extension of the print paradigm. And accept some people actually do know something about things you’ve never considered important until now.
[Now don't get me started on the fact their web developers haven't even discovered what a Document Type Definition (DTD) is meant to achieve, use tables for layout and edit in Adobe GoLive 5 - OK semi rant ended for now]
